Martin Boyd. A Life
Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1989.
Octavo, xiv, 268 pages plus 57 plates.
Papered boards; a fine copy with the fine dustwrapper.
Provenance: Sir Walter Crocker (1902-2002), with his pencilled ownership signature on the flyleaf, and his pencilled annotations and (sometimes emphatic) emphases throughout. Two blank pages at the rear are filled in with further pencilled comments. Loosely inserted is a photocopy of Crocker's lengthy review of the book in 'Overland'. A short note printed at the end of the review states that 'Sir Walter Crocker became a friend of Martin Boyd during his years in Rome as Australian Ambassador. He revisited Rome to spend time with him a few months before Boyd's death'. Also present is a typed letter signed (from 'John' to 'Walter', one page octavo, Adelaide, 12 November 1989). We know it to be from The Honourable Dr John Jefferson Bray AC QC (1912-1995), SA Chief Justice, Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, poet, classicist, anti-modernist, and undeservedly not included in the 'Australian Dictionary of Biography' (but in 2015 a worthy biography appeared). Apparently, Crocker loaned the Boyd book and his review to Bray. The letter accompanied the book on its return, with thanks: 'I must confess my final impression was one of pity, but also of impatience. He had high talents but they seem to have brought him little happiness. I do not clearly understand how he managed to muddle away his money. I am inclined to agree that he was a repressed homosexual. He might have been happier if the restraints had been lifted but I suppose the ethos of the colonial gentry would have blocked that'.
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